The weather played along for HRC’s visit: bleak, cold, gray, and wet. The queue outside Gibson’s Bookstore stretched for blocks on end, mostly women with hoodies pulled up or huddled under umbrellas. When I arrived, Vermin Supreme was working the line, reading excerpts from his upcoming book. Across the street, two parking spaces, TWO, were dedicated to the protest, one covered by a pop-up tent to keep protesters and the real pony dry. Three stuffed ponies had to brave the rain.
Protesters were a mixed bag. Free Staters like me, as well as Bernie supporters. On social media, someone criticized the “Health care is a human right” sign with this comment: “Ponies = awesome…. Why did someone have to ruin it with lies about having a right to the products of another’s labor?” I responded with: “I like that Vermin Supreme brings together people of different persuasions. When you’re pushing ponies, it ain’t no big thang if we don’t agree on how to solve politics…” Supreme chimed in with: “I run a big pony tent.”
Laughs aside, it is important to note that challenges to the status quo often create strange bedfellows. Since Vermin’s platform is performance art, I am less concerned in this case with being lumped with Bernie supporters, but for the record, I do not endorse actual ponies for everyone, Universal Healthcare, and believe everyone should decide for themselves how and when to brush their teeth (because under my system of personal responsibility, if you let your teeth rot, only YOU are responsible).
Watching the patiently waiting HRC sycophants, I wondered aloud, “Hillary must have writers’ cramp by now, signing all those books.”
“Maybe she has a stamp?”
“Maybe she has her people do it for her?”
“Then she only has to dot the ‘i’s.”
“And cross the ‘t’s.”
The truth is more mundane. A thousand tickets were pre-sold (at $30 a pop, way to go, Gibson’s!), and the books were pre-signed, although HRC did, apparently, customize a few.
It was a sight to behold, and the press of New Hampshire agreed. Most of the news coverage went to the protest (Union Leader; Concord Monitor; Nashua Telegraph; NH1). My favorite headline was the Monitor’s “Outside book signing, a dogged pony show.” Poor Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, tweeted in response to the Union Leader’s Trent Spiner’s comment, “Did anyone foresee the day when Vermin Supreme and his pony got more A1 play in New Hampshire newspapers than Hillary Clinton?” that “Both newspapers should be embarrassed.”
No one should be embarrassed. All things told, it was a fun day out for all concerned. HRC’s peeps got to meet their lady-in-perpetual-waiting, merry pranksters got to support Vermin Supreme, and most importantly, the First Amendment prevailed.
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